


The Orphan Song

by Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola



Category: The Monstrumologist Series - Rick Yancey
Genre: Adventure, Family Drama, Sibling Bonding, orphan bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-02 22:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5266619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola/pseuds/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after a grief stricken and turbulent Pellinore Warthrop fled from Muriel's abandonment, the product of his single night of heartbroken foolishness is brought to his doorstep, wayward and half-orphaned.</p><p>What Annalee Warthrop hoped to find on the other side of the 425 Harrington Lane's front door, so far away from all she knew in New York City, was a father. What she found was Pellinore Warthrop. </p><p>Chapter 1: The Monstrumologist</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Monstrumologist

**Author's Note:**

> This work is an edited and reworked version of the Assistant Apprentice. The entire plot will be different and it will be significantly less terrible. It is also neither Willinore nor Jack/Anna. Enjoy!

# Summer 1887

To the eyes a different ten year old than me the house, 425 Harrington Lane, might have caused shuddering and tears. The paint was peeling and the lawn unmaintained, the porch sloped with rot and the shutters hung loose. But to my eyes, fresh from the tenant complexes in New York City and snatched from the jaws of the workhouse, it was palatial indeed. 

The constable of New Jerusalem, Robert Morgan, had his hand gripped tightly on my shoulder. I scuffed by heavy boots along the paved path as we walked up to the door. In my pocket, I clutched the card that had saved me. It was folded and faded but read still, quite legibly: 

_Dr. Pellinore Xavier Warthrop_  
_425 Harrington Lane_  
_New Jerusalem, Massachusetts_  
  
It had been that card alone that had kept from a train bound to whatever fate wanted from me in the Mid West. The card and the mismatched stories my dead mother had given me. It had been hardly anything but it had been enough.

The constable rapped on the door. His hand was uncomfortable on my shoulder and his face was set with a grim distaste. He didn’t want to bring me here, and had told me as much. Had said, in fact, that if he had any other option he would have brought me there, to any home but this one. When I had said why I had come, that they had been shipping orphans out west, to work on Mid Western farms, he had told me I would have been better off taking my chances. But it was his duty as a lawman to bring me, a wayward almost orphan, to my next of kin. And beyond the door with peeling paint, marked with a sturdy 425, was my next of kin.

The constable had to knock three times before there was an answer. In this way, I heard him before I saw him. 

“Will Henry! WILL HENRY! WILL HENREEEE!” 

Each of his subsequent shouts were louder than the last. Anger blossoming each time he had to repeat himself. 

I had always known his name, he was a story that my mother had been strangely fond of, considering it had left her bereft and with child. But he had been what she called ‘a proper gentleman’ and one of the few of those that she had ever come into close proximity to. She only learned his name afterward, when he fled, leaving behind his coat, a business card tucked into the pocket. Her name he had never known. She had told him of course, but he had called her something else. 

The old card had not said what he did. I had it with me only as proof of my paternity, the only gift my father had ever given me. It didn’t matter if he took it as such, it had been enough to keep me out of a workhouse and out of the farmland, so it had done as much as I could ask of a bedraggled old card. If he threw me out, I could dodge the constable and get back to the city. 

After many minutes the constable’s summons was answered, even though we had come in the dead of night. But we were not greeted by a man, but a boy, older than me maybe by a year or two and no more. He looked entirely bedraggled with circles under his eyes and sleep tossed clothes. 

“Ah, Will,” the constable said, discomfort increasing with the sight of the boy, “I have a matter to discuss with Dr. Warthrop, fetch him at once.” 

Will’s attention was on me rather than the constable, but I didn’t say anything. I had been struck by nerves. The name Pellinore Warthrop and the address 425 Harrington Lane had been a phantom of my childhood. I had employed them to serve my short term needs. Now, standing before the house, it settled into my heart that my father lay just beyond the door. 

A crease formed between the boy Will’s brows, but he turned back into the house without comment. I felt equal measures of dread and anticipation for the man he would bring back with him. When I had imagined him, I had always thought of him as a masculine version of myself, as I looked nothing like my mother. But he was a gentleman, so he would be elegantly dressed and his hair would be carefully combed and sleek. When finally Will returned he brought with him a man who was nothing like the creature I had dreamed up. If Will was bedraggled, the man himself who was positively grimy. Not quite the gentleman I had been told about. He was tall and slender and might have been good looking if he were cleaned up a bit. I wondered if he were ill, his face was so pale and hollow. There were stains marring his shirtsleeves, rolled up to the elbow, and what looked quite like blood smeared on his collar, unbuttoned. When he looked at him, it was with his mouth drawn into a such a sneer as I had never seen. 

I had grown up three blocks south of the Five Points in New York City, a rough neighborhood to be sure. I had spent the first nine years of my life with only the, spotty at best, oversight of my mother, in the last I had not had even that. There had been a leftover part of my heart that had hoped this house would be the sanctuary all children dream for. That this man, my father, might alleviate the already heavy burden of looking after myself. What orphan does not dream of a wealthy father who appears as if a dream? Into whose arms I could be scooped up and onto who’s cheek I could press kisses and call him ‘Papa’ and he would lavish me with affection and care. But having only peered inside and stared for a single moment on his face, I knew these hopes to be dashed.

“Dr. Warthrop,” the constable said, “A matter has come to my doorstep that is, to my unhappiness, of great concern to you.” The constable had released my shoulder to take out a pipe and nervously fiddle with it.

“Why did you bring a waif to my door in the dead of night, constable?” The one, Doctor Warthrop, answered. His voice was sharp and not at all pleasant. 

I could feel the constable stiffen, his hand returned to my shoulder, tighter than it had before. “It is the waif, as you call her, that is of your concern. Pellinore, if there were another option available to me, let it be known that I would take it, but the law demands she be brought here.” 

The doctor’s face was quite enough to determine what he thought of that pronouncement. He spoke, however, regardless, “What do you mean, constable that the law demands it?” 

“You are her next of kin, Pellinore.” 

Behind the doctor, my father, the boy Will Henry’s eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. He looked from me to Warthrop. The question on the boy’s mind, and on the minds of both the doctor and the constable was clear. And now that I got a good look at him, so was the answer. His hollow cheeks and sharp cheekbones, his dark eyes and hair. All of these things he had given to me.

There was a moment where the doctor looked startled, then his face chilled to an icy indifference, “Next of kin? Whatever do you mean, constable?” 

The constable haltingly explained, “Her mother died, Pellinore, but left her with your address. She told the girl that you were her father. Pellinore look at her, there can be no mistake.”

Behind him, Will Henry choked. Pellinore Warthrop glowered at him and then at me, “That is impossible.” He said with more decisiveness than he had a right to. As though he had never spent a night I had heard very much about calling my mother by the wrong name.

I took the card from my pocket and held it out to him, “You left your coat.” 

Color smeared itself over Pellinore’s sharp cheeks. He stood mutely for nearly an entire minute, eyes fixed on the card. Then, in a sudden recovery his hand shot out and he took it from me. He looked at it with a fixed gaze then he said briskly, “Very well, constable, leave her with me.” 

He stepped aside and I left the constable on the stoop, walking passed the doctor into the house. Fear at the door closing and being locked inside welled up under my skin. The cryptic reservations of the constable and the dread that emanated from the house itself all adding to my unease. 

“You see to her care, Pellinore,” the constable warned, “I will be quite stringent on that account.” 

Pellinore, eyes quite fixed on me, closed the door on the constable without answering his demand. His gaze was smothering. Door shut he paced around me, running his long fingers through his dirty hair. I turned with him, not allowing him at my back. I was heavily cognizant of the handle of my knife which pressed comfortingly against my ankle. Will Henry watched me too, his face a mixture of curiosity and compassion. 

“What happened to you mother?” Warthrop asked sharply. His tone impelled a timely response free of disobedience, but I had too much long practice in disobeying.

“What do you think?” I asked, sneer evident in my voice. I knew that I should be trying to make a better first impression. But I had put my hopes so tenderly on finding someone caring and warm that this smelly, glowering man in front of me had shaken me. 

Will Henry flinched. 

“Answer the question,” he said sharply, “Directly and honestly.” His voice bit, demanding and controlling. 

There was not a tone of voice in the world that would make me less likely to give a direct and honest answer. Who was he, a dirty blueblood in a rotten palace to scowl at me! Wasn't it him, the educated and well off fat cat who had left me behind him? Why was it in his right to be sour at me? So instead of answering directly and honesty I shrugged, “I thought you’d be able to puzzle it out. Ain’t you supposed to be smart? Being a doctor and all that?” 

Will Henry’s eyes widened once more and Pellinore barked, “Of course I can make assumptions. But tell me, give me a full account.”

Anger flared up my spine and I mimicked his voice. My voice lent itself to the task, being another gift from him, “It what way, Doctor Warthrop, do you deserve to know the history of my mother?”

He reeled back, anger sharpening his features. But guilt was there too. I smelled it like a festering wound.

“She’s dead,” offered.

Will spoke before Warthrop got the chance, juxtaposed against the doctor, his voice was soothing, full of compassion and loss, “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Yours too?” I asked. I was softer for him. A small boy only my size with eyes big and full of disquiet.

Will looked down at the floor and nodded, “And my father too.”

The doctor turned away in a flurry, his long fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides. If he hadn’t been breathing I would have thought he was made of stone. As suddenly as he had turned he flung himself back his face lit up in wrath, “Enough!” 

His anger made me tired. Everyone was always angry. It seemed to me in my narrow ten years of experience, that adults were always either angry or lying. I felt silly for letting myself hope he would be the papa of fairy tales. That he would be any sort of guardian against the hard things in the world. It was as though I had suddenly grown many years and the tiny child who had tended to the soft dream of a papa was only someone I had been a long time ago. A girl I could look back on with scorn. How good could he have ever been? After all, he had spent a night with my mother. That was not a thing good men did.

I think I must have shrunk away, because he softened for almost an entire moment. He reached out his hand toward me. Part way there he snapped it back as though I had stuck. 

“I-What is your name?” 

I looked at my boots and shuffled them. I didn’t answer. I had not, of course, really grown up over the course of a few moments and I felt the well of tears coming up my throat.

“Your name, girl! Have you been struck deaf or are you stupid?” 

The tears died in my throat, and I glared at him, “I’m not stupid!” 

“Then answer the devil damned question!” He raged back. 

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Lee,” I muttered at the floor. 

“Speak up, for God’s sake, why must children mutter and whisper? Look at me when you speak.” 

I glared at him again, “I said Lee.” 

He scoffed, “That is not name for a girl. What is your entire name? Or was that one syllable all you could ever remember?” 

I set my shoulders and bared my teeth. I hissed through them, “Annalee Muriel Warthrop.” 

He reeled back, his eyes fixed on me, “What did you say?” 

My little lip curled in a snarl, “You deaf or just stupid?”

Will’s eyes went so wide I thought they would come right out of his head and Warthrop stood stock still for a long moment. 

“ _What did you just say to me?_ ” 

I think he expected me to shrink or cower, because he leered down at me like a viper. But I rose up at him, shoulders square, “I asked,” I said showing my teeth, “If you were deaf or just stupid!” 

“You come to my house, you filthy little wretch, and demand I take you into my protection! And you beset me with sneering attacks? You-” 

I was savvy to the goings on of men. If you let them get in their stride that’s when they really knocked you down. So I spit back over the top of his seething. “If you wanna turn me out then turn me out! I didn’t never need a papa before this and I don’t need one now!” 

He scoffed, “And where would you go? Do you think you would survive for more than a moment on the streets?” 

This took all the anger right out of me and I started to laugh. 

“What the hell could you possibly find amusing?” 

“Where d’you think I’ve been the goddamned Waldorf Astoria?”

His voice was no less sharp, but had lost its volume, “Have you not been staying with your mother?” 

“She died a year ago.” 

He fidgeted and clasped his hands behind his back, “Then where the blazes have you been staying?” 

“I think, sir,” Will said cautiously, “That she means she’s already been on the streets.” 

“Obviously that is what she means, Will Henry,” he snapped, turning on the boy. 

“You turning me out or what?” I asked, exasperated. I hoped at least he’d spare a little train money to get me back to my city. 

“No.” He said abruptly, “...Annalee.. _Muriel_....Will Henry, take her to a room and see to her needs.” With that he turned and stormed to the other side of the kitchen, wrenching open a door that led to a dark downward staircase, disappearing down it. 

Will shuffled his feet unsurely, “I’m sorry...you aren’t going to find the doctor very welcoming.” 

I pushed my hair back behind my ears, “It’s fine...it’s what I expected, I guess.” 

“You want me to show you your room?” 

I nodded, “Sure.” 

“Do you...do you have any things to bring up? I can bring them up for you.” 

“No, I don’t have nothing.” 

He gave me a sad smile, “I didn’t either. My house burned down.” 

“Sorry, Will. Is that how-”

“Yeah. 

“So I get a bedroom?” 

He nodded, “Come on.” 

He led me up a wide, dusty staircase. It smelled better out of the kitchen, where the smell of rotten food and dirty dishes was a little lessened. 

“How long have you lived with him, Will?” 

“Only a few months,” He tugged his little hat down more securely on his head. 

“What’s he do?” 

Will missed a step going up the stairs and nearly fell, “He’s uh- he’s a philosopher.” 

“Why’s a philosopher have blood on his shirt?” 

Will was looking uncomfortable, “He’s-He’s well- He told me I couldn’t say.” 

I shrugged, “So don’t say.” 

His shoulders relaxed in relief, “Here’s the room. It might be sort of dusty.” 

He opened a creaky door at the end of the hall that was tucked behind an attic ladder that stuck down into the hall. I walked in and spun in a slow circle, looking at my room. It was grand and old fashioned with hangings on the bed and elaborate detail work on the furnishings. 

I had slept in many different places. My mother had a hard time keeping us in one apartment, so we moved up and down the slums. She had sometimes left me for weeks or months at a time in an orphanage. After my mother had died, rooms had been in an even faster rotation. Sometimes I worked for a day to get a roof over my head, or cleaned up hotels enough that they let me stay in a back room. And I’d had a friend who used to let me stay with him. 

Eccentric doctor be damned, this was the first room I had ever slept in that was not occupied with cockroaches and bedbugs. 

I turned back to Will and I grinned, “Nice digs.” 

Unsure, Will smiled back. He looked almost like he’d forgotten how. “So you’ll stay here too?” 

“It’s better than New York in the winter.” 

“You don’t have anywhere else to go?” 

“No. You either?” 

Will shook his head, “He’s all I have….you shouldn’t yell at him. He’s…He can have a temper.” 

I grinned again, “I could tell.” 

“Is he really your father?” 

I shrugged, “I think so.” 

He looked back down the hall and shut the door so we were alone, “Who was your mother? It’s just- I can’t imagine the doctor being in love.” 

I stared at him in absolute confusion, “What are you talking about?” 

Pink was blossoming on his cheeks, “Well...you know...in order for you to…” 

“He didn’t stay more than a night, Will." To complete my explanation I used the word I had heard from the lady of the night mother of my best friend in New York, "He didn’t love her, he just fucked her.” 

He gasped and jumped, going profusely red. “I- oh- I.” 

“Left his coat he was in such a hurry to get out. She only knew his name because that card was in his pocket.” 

“Oh,” he was still desperately red, “That...that doesn’t sound like something the doctor would do.” 

“Well I’m here, right?” 

He shrugged, “You do look an awful lot like him.” 

I shifted around and looked at the floor. All this was starting to get to me. No more than three days ago I’d still been in New York City, the only place I’d ever known. I felt very out of sorts. The room I was in felt like it should be an improvement to my station. No roaches, a nice grate for a fire, hangings on my very own bed that I wouldn’t have to share with anyone. But I mostly felt alone. I was very far from the people that I knew, even if I didn’t like most of them much. 

“Are you alright?” He asked. 

I nodded. New Yorkers were supposed to be tough. And I’d seen tough things. I ought to have a stiffer upper lip than this. But I had begun to cry. It felt very silly that only less than an hour ago I had felt almost grown up. I felt like a tiny little thing with no friends at all. My little shoulders shook and I couldn’t quell the sobbing. I wanted very much my dead mother and my best friend all the way home in New York. 

“Anna?” Will asked stepping forward. His eyes were so soft and compassionate and his little face was so sweet I couldn’t help myself. There wasn’t a scrap of malice about him. I rushed into his arms, even though we had only just met. 

He didn’t push me away or even startle. He just put his arms around me. He didn’t say anything, he let me put my face into his shirt and be afraid. Will was very soft and very warm. I snuck my arms around him and held him fast in my little grip. 

I had not held him for more than a moment when something in my embrace set him loose and he gripped me as fiercely as I gripped him and I felt the hotness of tears from his eyes. 

We stood together for many minutes before we awkwardly disengaged and each of us tried to wipe our eyes. 

“Are you tired?” 

I nodded.

“I’ll...I’ll let you sleep. The doctor shouts at night sometimes. Don’t be frightened.” 

I almost told him that I was never frightened. That I had lived on the streets of New York City. I had fought with knives. I had run for my life. I was not afraid, certainly not of mean old doctors. But he wasn’t condescending like most people were when they told you not to be afraid. Not Will. So I smiled, “I won’t be. Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight. Oh...If you need anything...I sleep right above you in the attic.” 

I smiled at him.

### 

The next morning I woke early, being unused to the bed that was bigger and softer than I was used to. I stumbled up and tried to make myself look presentable. As much as I had given lip to my newly discovered father, it is the fault of ten year olds that they like to be liked. I did _want_ him to approve of me. It was hardly my fault that he’d come out of the gate on the offense. 

I didn’t have any fresh clothes so I put on the boy’s clothes I had come in. They were too big for me, and hung loosely off of me. They’d have fallen right down if it hadn’t been for the suspenders keeping them up. 

I looked dirty and bedraggled. Not anything like the daughter of a doctor. Much more like the street urchin that I was. But there was nothing for it. There was a toilet stand but this was obviously a man’s room and there wasn’t a hairbrush on it. I did my best to flatten my dark and unruly hair then came cautiously out of the room. 

I crept down the stairs and back into the kitchen, it was cold and empty. I shuffled my feet. The kitchen was foul. The floors full of debris and grime, tea cups and dishes piled high in the sink. 

I stood alone in the kitchen waiting for someone, for what felt like a very long time. It might have been but a few minutes, but it felt to me like nearly an hour. I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. I crossed my arms against the chill. It was early summer and not so cold, but the whole house felt like it had a chill. 

I didn’t want to go searching through rooms. I didn’t know yet if there were places I was forbidden to go. And even after the night before, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be useful. 

With great uncertainty I crept toward the sink. I didn’t want to attempt any breakfast. Going through the larder seemed a barrier I had not yet earned having only just arrived. But surely no trouble could come of washing the foul dishes. I scooted forward to them. I looked back at the stairs then at the door he had disappeared through the night before. When no one came bursting out I hunted out a rag and soap. The running water fascinated me briefly. Plumbing was not something new, pubs and bars and restaurants had it. Some of the nicer hotels that let me sweep up for extra coins. But I’d never had free rein to toy with it. I let it run over my fingers while I filled the sink. I smiled softly. I had done dishes of course, many times, even if I had rarely cleaned anything this fetid. 

It took nearly an hour, but I was not disturbed. The house was very quiet. I could almost convince myself that they had left and that I was alone. And maybe they had. I had no idea about the habits of rich doctors. Maybe they spent every morning out of the house. 

I carefully cleaned the molding teacups and dirty plate and bowls and laid them all out on a towel I had thrown over the table. I washed all the dishes in the sink and all of them I could collect from around the kitchen. I still did not want to explore the house. So I decided cleaning those dishes in the kitchen would have to suffice. I toyed with daydreams of him finding the kitchen spotlessly cleaned and offering some praise, 

‘ _Oh, Anna, I was wrong to shout at you. Don’t you see I was only startled at your appearance. You are such a good little girl. So helpful. I hope you will forgive my cruelty last night.’_

 _‘Of course,’_ I would answer, ‘ _If you will forgive my outbursts also, Papa.”_

_“There is nothing to forgive, little Anna, you were only frightened.”_

That was just how it would go. Last night was only him being upset and startled. He was a gentleman. My mother had said. Gentlemen were kind.

When they were clean I dried them and stacked them up in some kind of order. I then began looking through the cupboards to find where I ought to put them. Having found their home, I lifted a pile of plates. 

From almost directly behind me, with no warning footsteps, the doctor exclaimed gruffly, “What the devil!” 

I jumped badly, having thought I was alone and my fingers slipped on the dishes. I tried to catch them but I had stacked too many and they fell out of my hands and crashed onto the floor, smashing over each other. I let out a little screech and drew my hands up to my face, covering my mouth. I looked up at him with large, frightened eyes. I could not imagine the cost of that much porcelain. 

He was looking down at me in utter disgust. Under that gaze I quailed, I had so convinced myself that he would be pleased with me, I did not have the fortitude to withstand that expression. 

“Wretched child!” he exclaimed, “Are you set against me? You sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night to destroy half of my dining set?” 

“No!” I pleaded. I did not know what path of resistance to follow, for I had not stuck in and I was not set against him, and I had not meant to destroy his dining set, and also it was not the middle of the night, but mid morning. “No- I- It was an accident.” 

“An accident?” he scoffed, “I watched you just now pick them up and drop them onto the floor.” 

“You scared me!”

“Sir!” It was Will Henry come up from the basement after him to my rescue, “Sir, it was an accident, I’m sure of it. I’ll help her clean it up.” 

“I am not concerned with the mess, Will Henry, but with the enmity with which it was created.” 

The situation, already fraught, was brought lower for me. I couldn’t even defend myself and tell him there was not ‘enmity’ in my accident, having no idea what the word meant. Tears crept into my eyes, even though I did my best to hold them back. I wiped my eyes roughly. 

“My god, are you crying?” He scoffed. 

I pulled my hands against my chest, and snuffled, “No.” 

He made a great noise of disbelief, “And a liar besides. Curse your mother for dying and leaving me with you!” 

With that he banished himself from the room, sweeping into a part of the house I hadn’t yet been shown and slamming the door. 

I stood motionless among my broken dishes and looked at Will for solace and explanation. 

Will fetched a broom and a dustbin and began sweeping up the plates. I helped him without a word, “I was trying to help,” I murmured. 

“I know,” he said, “I think sometimes the doctor is just determined to be angry. I think you’ve surprised him with your sudden appearance. The doctor doesn’t take well to surprises.” 

We cleaned up the plates, most of them being undamaged, and Will helped me put away the other dishes. 

“Thank you for helping to clean up,” He said sweetly. 

I nodded, “I can be helpful.” 

He smiled at me, “I have to go to the market this morning, you could come with me! I will show you the town.” 

I smiled, “Yes, I want to see the town. I got here in the dark and didn’t see anything at all. I’ve only ever lived in New York.” 

“It’s not very exciting,” he warned. 

“When can we go?” 

“We can go now, we ought to before the doctor demands me again, I only have to fetch the money.” He scampered off and came back shortly, tucking money into his pocket. 

I was happier in the sun and the air in New Jerusalem smelled fresh and clean. It was quite a walk down the hill into town and I laughed and looked at Will, “I’ll race you!” 

He looked confused for a moment then his sweet face broke into a grin. He took off running and I followed after him. We were of height and both small so it was a fair race and we were nearly in step with each other for the whole run. We came to a stop as we got into the town proper, clutching our sides and laughing. 

“I won!” I exclaimed. 

“You did not!” He argued happily. 

“Fine, a tie then.” 

He beamed at me and it seemed an eternity since I had been nearly crying in the doctor’s kitchen. 

We went first to the bakery. It had been a very long time since I had been in a proper bakery and I inhaled the smell of it greedily. 

“Hello there, Will,” the stout man behind the counter said, “Just the same as usual, little sir? And who is this with you?” 

I put out my hand boldly over the counter, “Anna Warthrop.” 

The man did not shake my hand, but looked at me oddly, “Warthrop you said?” He peered at me closely, “Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered, “Martha!” he shouted, “Come up here.” 

I took back my hand unsurely and looked at Will who was biting his lip. 

A woman bustled up and I drew back from the counter, “What is it?” she snapped. 

“Look at that girl there, calls herself Warthrop.” 

“No,” she gasped, “Lord in Heaven and have a look at her too. Where did you crop up from, girl?” she asked me, “Who’s your mother?” 

I shrank behind Will. I was not used to people on the street knowing me or my relations. My mother and I had not been a part of the immigrant throngs that grouped together and created tiny cities for themselves. We had been shifting faced with neither family nor clan. I did not know how to take this. But Will looked unsteady. 

“Can’t be of good stock, dressed like she is,” the man said, “Wouldn’t have pegged that mad doctor to leave bastards about though.” 

The woman had the decency to cuff him for this, “Wait at least until she’s not right under your nose!” 

But I had heard him and didn’t like the comment at all, bastard though I was. The good mood I had been in had been extinguished. I hid myself behind Will who took me by the hand and pulled me from the bakery without getting anything. 

“I think we should go back,” he said. 

Unhappily, I nodded. I didn’t release his hand on the return journey, which seemed much longer. I felt as though the noses of the entire town were pressed against their windows to gawk at me. I wanted to sink into the dirt. 

Will walked me back to the house, which looked less menacing and more grimy in the daylight. We sat on the porch step. 

“Sorry. I didn’t think about that…” he said softly. 

“It isn’t your fault,” I still hadn’t released his hand. The small down boy was much sweeter than any creature I had known before.

“I still have to go back to the market.” 

“I’ll wait for you out here.” 

He looked at me and understood. I didn’t want to face the doctor alone. I think, if he had been given the option, he would not like to either. “Alright, I’ll be fast.” 

He stood up and I let go of his hand. He righted his little cap, smiled at me, and was off leaving me alone on the stoop. 

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the fresh air and the quiet. I don’t think I’d ever been on a street this quiet. There was no bustle of a thousand people or the clacking of carriages. I wrapped my arms around my knees and felt very pathetic. It could be worse, I told myself. He could be dangerous or slimy. He was just mean. I could tolerate mean. When had I not? 

I was suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness. I wanted the sharp rot of horse manure from the street and the shouting of the poor and the angry. But mostly I wanted my best friend who I’d left behind on the streets. His name was Erik and it was his clothes that I was wearing. His mother was alive and more than doting, even if she was a street lady. 

The door opened behind me. It did not slam like it had in the kitchen and I looked over my shoulder cautiously at the doctor, who I still forgot to think of as my father. 

He was still unwashed and in clothes dirtier than mine. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and I couldn’t tell if the shirt had originally been white or sort of gray. 

He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back, “Why are you sitting outside?” 

“It’s quiet.” 

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose you are quite used to New York City. Where did you live in the city? I used to live there, you know, on fifth avenue.” 

I smirked a little, “That’s a nice street.” 

“Yes, it was. I resided with my professional mentor, Dr. von Helrung, in a fine old brownstone.” 

“Sounds like good digs.” 

“You haven’t answered my question.” 

“Oh,” I said, “I moved around a lot, I lived in a whole bunch of apartments down near Five Points.” 

“My God, Five Points? No wonder you look like a ruffian. I will send Will Henry to town to procure you something more appropriate to wear. You smell foul. When you are more properly attired you might go with him to the market. Where is that boy?” 

“He’s at the market now, I went down with him already though. But I came back.” 

He stared down at me and seemed suddenly unfathomably tall, “You went down to the market already?” And edge had crept back into his voice, “And I suppose you announced your arrival and strove to destroy any ounce of respectability that I have scraped together!” 

I hunched my shoulders and frowned, “I just went to the bakery.” 

“And tell me, did they know who you belonged to?” 

I hid my face against my drawn up knees, “Yes.” 

He let out a sharp exclamation, “Do you seek every available avenue to ruin me, girl? Even now I suppose the town is raving with the idea that I have a bastard daughter from the gutter! Is that what you want?” 

I scowled at him. My New Yorkers spine kept me from being able to sit quietly and be blamed for my own existence, “You _do_ have a bastard daughter from the gutter.” 

He sighed and scowled into the distance, his hands were clenched behind his back, “You might at least have waited until you didn’t look like you just crawled out the street in dirty boy’s clothing.”

“I didn’t think-”

“No, of course you did not. That seems to be a failing of all the foul children that have been foisted upon me. You come here to extract hospitality from me and cannot be bothered to think of my wellness for a mere moment. You wanted have your fill at the bakery I suppose and that was more important than my reputation.” 

“...I am very hungry.” 

He swore, “Is that all children think about? Do you know what Dante says about gluttons?” 

“Is that a friend of yours?” 

He stared down at me in disgusted confusion, “Dante?” 

“Yeah, who issat?” 

“He is a thirteenth century poet.” 

“Oh.” 

“You unlettered urchin,” he muttered under his breath. 

“I ain’t unlettered,” I argued, “I can read alright.” 

He didn’t have an answer to that, just remained standing where he was, his hands behind his back, scowling down the lane in his dirty shirtsleeves. 

I felt like it would be better to stay quiet, but I was too weak against my curiosity. In the broad light of day the blood on his shirt was even more evident. 

“What sort of doctor are you?” I asked, “Will said you were a philosopher but that can’t be true.” 

“Why can it not be true? What do you know of philosophers?” 

“I know they ain’t got blood on their shirts.” 

He sighed again, “Quite,” he frowned again but it seemed more contemplative than angry, “I suppose if you are to be residing under this roof it would be futile to attempt to keep it from you, but I doubt you’ll find it pleasant.” 

I shrugged at his warning, my life, thus far, had not been what one might describe as pleasant and I doubted very much that there was anything this doctor could tell me that he did for work that would further mar my view on the overall quality of the world’s inhabitants. There had been a man who lived down the hall from my mother and I that I only knew as Mr.White. He left in the dark and came home in the dark smelling like blood. This doctor could do no worse. 

“I am a doctor of aberrant biology, in name, a monstrumologist,” he said sort of grandly. The last word, not the only one in the sentence that tripped me up, he pronounced cleanly, not letting any of the many syllables slur together ‘mon-stru-mol-o-gist’.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to understand what the devil that meant. Maybe if I could put definition to ‘aberrant,’ I would have had some idea. As it was, his declaration had not explained anything.

My face scrunched up in confusion, “What’s that mean?” 

He gave me a withering look, “Monstrumology,” he continued, his tone becoming lecturing, “is a branch of science concerned with the study and occasional pursuit of cryptids.” 

I frowned up at him, trying to makes sense of all the words he had just used, “What are crypids?” 

“Cryp- _tids_ ,” He corrected, “They are creatures whose existence are not recognized by the population at large. The layman’s term would be monsters.” 

I couldn’t tell if he was trying to tell a joke, “You’re trying to tell me you hunt monsters.” 

“Hunting them is sometimes required. Primarily I study them in my laboratory.” 

I turned back to the street, “You’re full o’ shit.” 

“Yes, well I suppose you would like some sort of proof.” 

I laughed, “What? You got one hanging in that basement of yours?” 

A small smile tilted up his lips, “I do, as a matter of fact. Would you like to see it?” There was something almost like excitement in his voice. He seemed to be able to go from angry to excitable with no warning at all. 

I stood up. I was still a child, of course, and liable to believe things that adults told me, particularly things that I thought it would be great fun to be true. What child didn’t want monsters to be real and close and ready to be fought? I nodded. 

He swept back into the house and I followed him into the kitchen to the door on the back wall. He opened it dramatically and motioned me down. He brought a lantern with him and came after me. 

The stairs were dark and narrow. I crept down them carefully. My heart was pounding with exhilaration. The part of my brain that grew up on a sour New York City street, the one that had not been allowed to be a ten year old child, chided me for my excitement. Monsters were not real. That I was foolish to go down into a basement with a man I had only just met. But the rest of me was too thrilled at the prospect of real living monsters. 

How often had Erik and I staged play hunts? How often had we laid on rooftops pretending we were stalking the toothy beasts all children can dream up. 

We reached the bottom and he held up his lantern to illuminate the little room. All of it smelled foul, like rot and blood and a burning smell I couldn’t place. Sharp instruments were laid upon a rolling cart and a metal table glinted in the lamplight. There was a stool beside it with a bucket by its side. 

But my attention was caught on the jars of preserved monstrosities and on the scaley little goblin hanging from the ceiling, dripping blood into a bucket underneath it. 

“Well, shit,” I breathed. 

I had been in petty scraps before, knocked around boys smaller than me for their pocket change, and indeed, been knocked around in turn for mine. There was a certain thrill in it that I had always liked. Something in a fight that made my bones tingle. How might it be to square up with a monster?

“There is a bucket there, by the stool, if you feel you will be sick.” 

I couldn’t tear my eyes off the monster for long enough to look at him, “Why would I be sick?” 

“This is a _Calis Lacerta_ , they are typically found in caverns and mining shafts. They can be quite bothersome to miners.” 

“A Calwhat?” 

He repeated the name and sounded not displeased with my interest. Was this the avenue then, that I could be useful? Maybe if I was helpful enough with the monsters he would stop shouting at me. That would be easy, I _wanted_ to know more about the monsters. 

Eventually I turned away from looking at its scaley face with spiky teeth sticking out to turn back to him. He looked quite like a mad scientist illuminated as he was from only the lantern on the table shining a flickering light up at the table. 

“Will you teach me?” 

A small smile played on his lips and my heart leapt with approval. Would my father teach me his profession like a proper father? Would I be allowed to follow clumsily in his footsteps? I smiled back at him. 

This a cloud passed over his face and his smile disappeared, he seized me by the shoulder and forced me back toward the stairs, his fingers digging into my skin, “Of course I cannot teach you Monstrumology. You are a young lady. It is not a profession suited for you.” 

He was so rough pushing me up the stairs that I stumbled and fell, slamming my shins against the hard wood of the stairs. I called out and he mercilessly lifted me and nearly tossed me into the kitchen, “You make a selfish and ridiculous request. Of course I cannot teach you Monstrumology. Are you a fool? Teach a child, and a girl, this darkest of professions? What do you take me for?”

I had fallen when he’d tossed me and I was in a heap on the kitchen floor. I stared lamely up at him, feeling the crush of disappointment. It felt desperately unfair that I would be told that monsters were real, showed one that hung in his basement and then told that I couldn’t help him just because I was a girl. 

“Will gets to!” I protested. 

“Will Henry is neither a girl, nor my- nor my progeny. You will not be inducted into this field. Go! Get to your room and stay there.” 

I picked myself up and began to drag myself out of the room toward the stairs. I looked over my shoulder and he was storming into the basement, where I was not allowed to follow. He slammed the door with a crash that reverberated around the kitchen.


	2. In the House

_‘Get into bed, Annie, do you want a story.’_

_‘Yes, mama.’_

_‘Do you want to hear about your papa?’_

_‘Yes, mama.’_

_‘I gave you his last name, but you know that, don’t you. You aren’t no Mead like your mama. You will grow up looking like your rich papa. Name like Warthrop what else could you be but a little heiress? Look at you, pretty little thing. Someday I’ll look your papa up and get you some of his money. You know, Annie, you’ll make us both rich someday, won’t you?’_

_‘Yes, mama.’_

_‘Oh you should have seen your papa, Pellinore Xavier Warthrop, he was a doctor. A doctor, Annie. And his shoes shone and his hair fell around his face, it was just like your hair. And he was beautiful.’_

_‘Boys can be beautiful?’_

_‘Your papa was. And eyes like I’ve never seen before. And how he talked, Annie, he sounded like money.’_

_‘How do you sound like money?’_

_‘Hush, girl, mama is telling her story. He was a prince, your papa was, gentlest man I ever been with.’_

_‘A real prince?’_

_‘Don’t make me cuff your ears again, girl. Course he weren’t a real prince. Just talked like one and smelled like one. Called me Muriel the whole time though.’_

_‘That’s my name.’_

_‘There you go, making me cuff you. Course it’s your name, I gave it to you. I suppose she’s some pretty lady that did him wrong. You’ll meet him someday and he’ll sweep you off your little feet and give you everything you ever wanted. You just wait. He’s a real gentleman.’_

That was how I remembered it.  
  
I woke up in the big dirty house with a familiar ache in my belly. I’d been sent up to bed with no lunch and no supper, and none the day before, or the day before that. I’d been hungry before. But that didn’t make it easy. I crept out of bed and pulled on my socks. I still had no fresh clothes, but I’d found an old man’s nightshirt in the wardrobe to sleep in. 

I scooted out of my room into the dark hall. There was a weak shaft of moonlight in the hallway and I shuffled toward the door that I knew entombed my father. I raised my hand to knock, screwing up my face, but I lost my nerve. My hand dropped. Three times I tried to draw together enough courage but I failed. I framed what I might say in my head to ask him for a few bites of supper. But I could only come up with a shouted response from him. I didn’t want to be shouted at. I only wanted a little supper. It didn’t even have to be warm. 

I was quailing in front of the door when it popped open. I jumped and gasped, stumbling back and tripping on the too big night shirt so I fell onto the ground in a heap. I looked up, cowering at what I thought would be an irate Dr. Warthrop. But, thank God, it was Will, who peered down at me, his head tilted to the side. 

He shut the door and whispered, “Anna? Why are you awake? Did the doctor’s shouting wake you up?” 

I shook my head, then realized he could barely see me in the gloom, “No,” I whispered back, “I am just very hungry. I haven’t eaten.”

“Oh,” he jumped, “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. I made supper but the doctor told me not to fetch you. Come on, we’ll get something downstairs.”

He crept down the dark and cold stairs with me trailing after him, holding onto his cold little hand. 

“Why are you awake, Will? Why were you in his room?” We were far from his door now, but I was still whispering. 

“He needs me sometimes. I don’t understand what for. But he calls me out of bed and makes me sit with him. He just talks or he just lays there. But he likes it when I’m near him.” 

It would have been easier for him to take down the bread and cheese from the larder if he’d have let go of my hand but he didn’t. After the bread and cheese his free hand was too full to carry more. I bundled up the front of my nightshirt so it made a little nest over my belly. He smiled, still holding my hand, and deposited the food into it. 

When he’d gotten bread, cheese, a butter knife, and a little left over meat he paused with his hand hovering over a basket of scones. He looked up the stairs, then back at me, then at the scones. Quick as lightning he snatched it out and buried it in my shirtfull of dinner. 

“Let’s go outside,” I whispered, wanting to be free of the claustrophobic feeling the doctor laid over the house. 

“Alright.” 

We went out the back door that led into a riotously overgrown yard. There was long grass that had begun to go to seed and a knotty tree that curved up into shadows. In the moonlight all of it seemed wild. It felt odd to me that the doctor had this in his backyard. He was erratic and cruel, but he was not wild. 

“Come up the tree!” I hissed. 

Giggling we climbed into the dark tree, handing the food up as we climbed until we were nestled out of sight of the lawn and the house in two heavy branches where we could comfortably lounge. It was there we began our feast. We had really brought too much for two children, but we worked our way through it anyway, giggling and feeling quite mischievous. 

He saved the scone for last. With what seemed like reverence he broke it in half and gave part to me, “Here,” he whispered. 

The first bites of our scone were taken with something akin to how old ladies take communion. But I broke the ambiance. A splutter of laughter bubbled out of my lips and I sprayed scone over the dark gap onto Will. 

He began laughing too, half choking on his scone and covering his mouth to keep himself from being too loud. With both of his hands full he tipped sideways and almost fell off of his branch, only catching himself at the last second and laughing even harder. 

“These aren’t very good!” he laughed, spraying me with crumbs of scone.

This made me laugh too until we were both clutching our branches and giggling into the night. 

“ _WILL HENREEEEEEEE_!”

Both of us gasped in unison and covered our mouths to stifle any noise. 

The back door slammed open, smacking against the outside wall of the house. 

Will and I looked at each other, through a tiny ray of moonlight through the branches I could see that his eyes were very large. This was an enclave against him. He wouldn’t follow us up here, he was too large. We were safely tucked away. He could shout and bluster but we were out of reach.

“WILL HENREEEEE, What the devil are you doing outside!” 

The spell of safety broke and we both began scampering pell mell down the tree, scraping our knees and hands in our haste. On the last branch I slipped and dropped to the ground, landing hard a few feet down on my bottom. Will dropped next to me, falling over himself. 

Above us, framed in the moonlight, The Doctor towered. 

Both of us huddled closer to each other, pressed into silence by the glinting fury in his eyes. 

I felt his little hand clutch mine and I clutched it desperately back. 

“Will Henry, Annalee, what the _devil_ are you doing?” 

“Climbing a tree, sir,” Will answered feebly. 

“Yes, I can see that. Why?” 

“We-” I started. 

“Yes?” 

“We were...we were just…” but I couldn’t come up with even the truth of what we had been doing with those eyes burning down at me. I felt as pinioned to the dirt. 

“You were what?” He demanded. 

“I was hungry,” I said softly. 

He bent down and tore both of us up off the ground, hauling us bodily inside, “You were _hungry_? I am to believe that?” 

“Yes, sir!” Will spluttered.

“I hadn’t eaten since New York!” 

“What- why? Are you so foolish as to have forgotten that you require food?” 

“No!” I protested, “You didn’t give me any!” 

“I didn’t give you any,” He sneered back, shoving us both through the door and into the house, marching us to the kitchen where a lantern now burned, “A child half your age could find food for themselves. And that does not answer my question of why you were outside!” 

“We didn’t want to wake you, sir.” 

“Well you have, Will Henry, you have torn me from my much needed and well deserved rest that I could scour my own backyard for two savage children.” 

“Sorry, sir.” 

The food in my belly sat like a rock, making me unbearably sleepy. I didn’t have the backbone to stick up for myself in the middle of the night. So I huddled myself next to Will Henry, facing him instead, trying to shield myself from the doctor. 

He stared down at us for a while then cocked his head to one side, “Are you wearing my father’s nightshirt?” 

I looked down at the moth eaten man’s nightshirt that was trailing on the floor. Along with the yellowing and fraying it was down quite dirty from its trip outside, “Ummmm I didn’t have one of my own.” 

“Will Henry, I sent you after personal necessities for her, did you have such a lapse in judgement as to forget that she occasionally needs to sleep?” 

“I did, sir!” Will protested. 

“You did forget!” 

“No, sir!” 

“Well which is it, Will Henry? I have just asked if you forgot and you have said that you did.” 

“No, sir! I meant that I had gotten her one.” 

“Gotten her what?” 

“Sleeping clothes!” 

“Then why is she wearing an ancient cast off of my father’s?” 

“You told me I couldn’t give her anything, you told me she was sleeping and to let her be!” 

“So then it is my fault, Will Henry? You blame me-” 

In a tiny, shrill voice I interrupted him, “Leave him alone!” 

“What the devil did you just say to me?” He asked in a low rage. 

Seeming much braver than I felt, I wiggled myself between Will and the doctor, “I said leave him alone. You made me go to bed without any dinner and you shouted at Will and you made him buy me clothes without any help and now you’re yelling at him!” 

“I will speak to my assistant as I see fit!” 

I furrowed my little brow, “Fine! But I’m standing where I want right here!” 

“To bed! Both of you!” he snarled. 

Will seized my hand again and we dashed away from him, up the stairs. He didn’t stop at my room but dragged me all the way up the ladder into his loft. The trapdoor snapped shut behind us and he threw himself onto his bed. Without asking I laid down beside him. He didn’t chase me out, he turned and pulled me against him, he was very warm. 

We didn’t say anything, we snuggled against each other like dogs in the cold.

### 

I bathed the next day for my new clothes. I had a brush now to straighten out my dark tousles and a new dress. I hadn’t had a new dress in years and the last out I’d had had been made out an old flour sack. Clean and well dressed I really did look like a doctor’s daughter. 

Feeling half like someone who wasn’t quite myself, I slunk downstairs, hoping to find Will before I found the doctor. 

Like before, the kitchen was empty when I got to it. I smoothed my skirts. I knew better now, they weren’t away, they were only locked in the basement studying the goblin that had been hanging there. What had he called it? _Cryptid. Calis Lacerta._ There were eggs in the larder and some cheese left over from Will’s and my nighttime excursion. I took them out and found what I needed to cook breakfast. 

It felt unfair that they ought to be downstairs with a monster while I was up here cooking eggs. I had always been able to keep up with my friend Erik in New York and the other boys who lived around me. Was it only later when boys got better than girls at things? At a certain age did girls stop getting better at things and boys just kept right on going? I had tied Will at racing just the day before. And the boys at school had never been cleverer than me. 

I knew all about _my time_ that would come when I became a woman. But I didn’t see how that would slow me down much. My mother had said as much, _’Tuck a rag between your legs and get to work, that’s the long and short of it.’_

But I still cooked the eggs, and I only overcooked them a little. I was just scraping them onto three plates and deciding whether or not I should call the men of the house up from the monster room when the decision was made for me. 

He spoke, as he was accustomed to doing, from directly behind me, with no warning at all. 

“Do you know any French? Or any of the Classical Languages?” 

I only jumped a little. He was standing like a ramrod in the doorway to the monster room, his hands behind his back. 

“I don’t think so.”

He furrowed his brow, “What do you mean, ‘you don’t think so’? Do you or do you not?” 

I licked my lips, “What are the Classical Languages?” 

He sighed, “Greek and Latin.” 

“No then,” I said with more surety, “I know a little German though, and a couple words in Polish.” 

“But you didn’t learn those in school.” 

He had guessed correctly, I’d picked up the little I knew from immigrants. Both the children I played with and the adults who swore at me and chased me out of their shops. 

He came forward and loomed over me, “What did you learn in school?” 

I shrugged, “I can read alright, and write. I know a little math too. History and stuff like that.” 

“You went to the public school?” 

“Course, ma couldn’t send me to no private school. She could barely scrape together rent.” 

He looked away from me and inspected the wall. Finally he turned back, “You will have to be educated.”  
“Is there a school here? Does Will go?” 

“Of course Will Henry does not go. I need him here. He receives a far more comprehensive education under my tutelage than he would at that sordid little excuse for a school up the road.” 

“But I’m going to the sordid little school?” 

He glared, “Of course not. You are a-” he stuttered over it, “You are a Warthrop and must be educated like one.” It wasn’t true in the lawful sense. I was most certainly his blood but I was a bastard through and through. In legal terms I was not obliged to his care, but as I would discover, Dr. Pellinore Xavier Warthrop cared far more about the Laws of Biology than he did the Laws of Man.

I shuffled my feet, “If you wanted to teach me like a Warthrop, you could show me how to be a Monstrumologist.” 

I thought he would shout at me for this but he laughed, even if it didn’t sound like he thought it was very funny, “You are more correct than you perceive. My father- your grandfather- was a Monstrumologist before me.” 

“Did he teach you?” 

This made his face turn foul, “Hardly, as I said, I studied under a professional mentor.” 

“Dr. von Helrung, in a brownstone on fifth street.” 

“Yes, quite,” he peered at me, “The best schools are, of course, in New York City, and I could have my colleagues there look after you.” 

“I’m going back to New York!” I exclaimed, beaming. 

“No. You are acquainted with too many foul ruffians in that place for me to send you back there.” 

I sank in immediate disappointment but he was quite right. I thought immediately of my brother in arms Erik always quick with his fists and never less than rowdy. “Then where am I going?” 

He strode out of the doorway to circle around me, peering at me with his hard, dark eyes, “Washington D.C. I have contacted the headmaster of a school there, he will take you on in the fall.”

“Oh,” it was all I could think to say.

He heaved a great and terrible sigh, “I must bring you up to snuff before you depart. You will study all those things appropriate for a lady of distinguishment. The Classical languages and French, literature, music, a bit of mathematics. Were you any good in school?”

I scratched my face uncertainly, “I guess. Clever as any of the boys,” I mumbled vindictively. 

“If you are truly my daughter I am sure of that,” it did not sound as though he were complimenting _me._

I made a final appeal for my cause, “I _really_ want to learn about monsters. I’ll work hard and be useful.” 

My attempt was followed by the longest silence I had ever endured. He paced about me, staring down at me, hands tightly held behind his back. Scruffy faced and hollow cheeked he looked like a ghoul creeping about me, trying to find the best place to sink in his teeth. “Why?” 

“Huh?” 

He frowned, “Why do you want to learn about cryptids so badly?” 

I straightened up, “Well… I can’t just go back to pretending they’re not real after I know that they are, can I? And if they’re running around I want to know how to take care of them.” 

His lip curled, “Self preservation. Is that all you rats from the street are capable of? Does wallowing in the stagnant gutter water stunt the development of your mind? Of your curiosity? Are you capable of only thinking of how to keep yourself drawing breath for another miserable day?” 

I shook. That wasn’t fair. I wasn’t a gutter rat. Erik wasn’t a gutter rat. _My mother_ wasn’t a gutter rat. “You wanna know what it’s like being hungry all the time? Try it!” I screeched and threw his plate of breakfast at him. He flinched to the side but the plate caught his elbow and eggs splattered over his shirt. 

He towered in anger, “You malignant little fiend!” he shouted, wrenching me up by the wrist and pulling me up the stairs. I was no match for his adult strength and was helpless to be dragged through the hall and tossed into my bedroom. “You will remain here until you can behave with more civility.” 

I rolled up and charged at him, “You’re the one who called me a street rat! You show some civility!” 

He stayed his hand as it was about to slam my door shut on my face and he grimaced, “Yes...perhaps that was unfair of me. I am sure you have not lived in decadence.” He stood there for many minutes in dark contemplation. My short flame of anger had burnt itself out. He made me feel very small and very afraid. 

He enlivened himself enough to rasp, “How did she die?” 

I tucked my arms around myself and bit my lip, “Fever.” 

“How long did it take?” 

I sniffed. It had happened a year ago, I had been eight years old.

_‘Mama? Are you gonna get better?’_

_She had already been sick for so long, more than two weeks. She hadn’t been able to work. Her eyes are sunken and red, her hair was greasy and sweaty, ‘No, Annie, no I’m going to meet our good Lord.’_

_I laid down in her arms and she was too sick to tell me not to. She smelled like urine and sick but I stayed. ‘What are you gonna do when you get there?’_

_She shifted as much as she could to wrap her sick body around me while she could, ‘Give him a piece of my mind.’_

_‘What am I supposed to do?’ I understood what dying meant. I didn’t understand what her dying meant._

_‘That boy Erik’s mother will look after you a little. You’re going to have to find your own suppers though. Don’t you become a street girl. Get a good factory job.’_

_‘Alright, mama.’_

_‘You take that card now, Annie, your papa’s card. If it gets too bad you get yourself there. Don’t waste your coins on a letter.’_

_‘What’s he like?’_

_She pressed her chilled and sweaty lips against my hair, ‘Oh my baby girl, you might have to find that out.’_

“How long did it take?” He repeated, that edge creeping back into his voice.

I sniffled, “A long time.” 

“Why didn’t you come straight here, if you knew where I was?” 

I didn’t lie, “She told me to only come if I really had to.” 

His head cocked to the side a quarter of an inch, those eyes like twin fires split through my skin, seeking. It was many moments before he spoke to me again, “She didn’t tell me you were born.” 

For the first time since I had arrived on the step of 425 Harrington Lane, an inch of humanity had wormed into his voice. It resurrected the corpse of hope I had tried to smother in my tiny orphaned heart. Maybe he would be the papa that I had hoped for. He managed in that single utterance to communicate a desperate longing to _have known_. Perhaps not to have held me when I was a squirming toddler and calmed my tantrums, but to have been, at least, made aware that his blood had been passed along. 

The frightened anger I had been tending died in my breast, “You know now.”


End file.
